Let’s allow this beautiful verse to penetrate deeper into our hearts today:
“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Dt 31:8 NIV
God will never leave nor forsake us, but we often leave and forsake Him! Then we wonder where God is!?! Living a life surrendered to Jesus as Savior and Lord is a life all about “turning around”…or in other words, it is a life lived in repentance. That’s what repent means, to turn around, away from our old MMI Self and towards God so we CAN follow Him. Living in repentance doesn’t mean we walk around beating our chest and thinking we are garbage! That’s who we were apart from God, but now? Now, we are His beloved, holy children!
We are beloved because God is love and has already decided to love us. This doesn’t mean He will not allow us to have a “time out” now and again! If we are refusing to follow Him, then He will allow us to have our way, which usually means getting ourselves into some kind of mess…but then He is right there to help us clean it up too as we repent, as we turn around, back into His Presence, refocusing on Him and learning to follow His lead.
We are holy because Jesus has already taken away our sin nature. As I have often, gladly, heard it said, when God looks into our hearts, He sees His perfect, sinless Son and treats you and me as if we are Him. We are holy because we no longer belong to this world. We have been set apart to be different. And the only way to be different is to follow Jesus and not those three enemies we used to follow.
God’s Way and their ways are polar opposites, so either we are facing God and following Him OR we have turned away and are back to our old MMI ways! I mentioned yesterday that “some kind of noise behind me grabs my attention” and I turn from God. These distractions of life are the enemy’s tricks to take our eyes off God and place them back on those three enemies. Or in other words, to make us leave and forsake God…ahhh, but if you belong to God, He won’t let you stay away for long.
Join me in memorizing 52 verses this year:
January: 1- Jn 3:16; 2- 2Co 5:17; 3- Jas 2:26; 4- Eph 2:10
February: 5- Jn 10:10; 6- Ro 6:23; 7- Rev 21:4; 8- Php 4:13
March: 9- 1Pe 5:7; 10- Jn 8:32; 11- Dt 30:19; 12- Jn 3:30; 13- 2Chron 20:3
April: 14- 2Chron 20:12; 15- 2Chron 20:15b; 16- 2Chron 20:17
May: 17- Ro 8:28; 18- 1Co 13:13; 19- Php 2:12; 20- Mt 5:4
June: 21- Lk 23:42; 22- Jas 4:7; 23- Pr 22:6; 24- Mt 5:3; 25- Jn 14:6
26- Jas 2:19
27- Dt 31:8
<>< Peace, Diane
